Mexico City, Mexico, Oct 6, 2009 / 01:35 pm (CNA).- Auxiliary Bishop Antonio Lerma Nolasco of Mexico City said this week that homosexual unions cannot be considered marriages or families. “They can be called whatever you want, but never marriage,” he said.

In his homily at the Cathedral, the bishop exhorted the faithful to defend marriage as part of the divine plan, which starts with the union between a man and a woman. Because of the origin of marriage, the bishop said unions that are distinct from this “act of mutual love” cannot be considered marriage.

After pointing out that man and woman were created to form a couple capable of passing on love, Bishop Nolasco said other kinds of unions such as those between people of the same sex, cannot be called families, since “rather than fostering unity,” these unions “attack family values.”

Same-sex unions “can be called whatever you want, but never marriage,” Bishop Nolasco insisted.

“God created them man and woman, and for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two will be one, such that they are no longer two but one flesh,” he said, quoting from Genesis.